Matteo Salvini's lowest hours

Matteo Salvini (Milan, 48 years old) was an irrepressible cyclone. Nobody understood exactly how, but in 2013 he took a party that was destroyed, in debt and with a 4% vote estimate and turned it into a hegemonic formation in Italy. The Lombard politician understood better than anyone the wind that was blowing and transformed the old Northern League, an autonomist party that demanded independence from the Padania, into a Lepenist artifact with a Mediterranean aroma that won 34.5% of the votes in the elections. European elections of 2019. He became Vice President of the Government, Minister of the Interior - turned into a kind of

reality show

about his life - and leader of the European extreme right.

His popularity grew in tandem with a surprisingly accepted eurosceptic and anti-immigration discourse in one of the founding countries of the European Union.

But today, just two years later, when politics demands to build, it has lost 15 points and risks an internal rebellion if the results of the next municipal elections (on October 3) are not good.

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• Mutation within the Italian right

Salvini is only being able to add losses in each battle that begins. The latter, on account of the mandatory vaccination certificate, has left him very weakened internally and before public opinion. The barons of his party, led by the governor of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Federico Fedriga and the governor of Veneto, Luca Zaia, have forced him to accept the covert imposition - that is the certificate in reality - of the vaccine to go to work. Northern businessmen have had enough of Salvini's dabbling in the anti-vaccine world and, faced with the risk of stopping production again due to a new wave in autumn, have demanded the moderate wing of the party to stop their leader. And so it has been. So did the Liguista Minister of Economic Development, Giancarlo Giorgetti,that he was in favor, contradicting his boss and highlighting the internal fracture. All three prefer management and hard work, to selfies eating Nutella or wearing the AC Milan jersey. And the businessmen, the moral universe in which the old Northern League used to operate well, too.

The League has always been a party with a Leninist character. During the years of Umberto Bossi's leadership, his figure was never discussed. And nobody was also able to imagine a few months ago that Salvini could suffer an internal rebellion to overthrow him. Training doesn't work like that, it doesn't have those tools. But some voices are already talking about convening a congress to explore a moderate, focused and pro-European path that does not put the stability of the country at risk. Or at least to force Salvini to change course. And to the

establishmen

t from the north of the country, which has always trusted the League and its ruling class, is enthusiastic about the idea. Extremism and doubts do not lead to anything good. And even less at this time when the most important thing is growth and taking advantage of the resources that come from Europe ”, point out sources from the Italian employers' association. The ideal candidate would be precisely one of those barons: Luca Zaia.

The parties have also smelled blood. And after years intimidated by the aggressive rhetoric of Salvini and his army of faithful in networks, capable of intimidating anyone, they begin to take out the leader of the League. “He is someone irrelevant. It counts for nothing. He's desperate, ”said Enrico Letta, leader of the Democratic Party. Last week, Salvini managed to arrange a meeting with the Vatican's foreign minister. But his optimistic version at the exit did not agree too much with that of the Holy See. The leader of the League is blurred. Partly because Prime Minister Mario Draghi has managed to defuse his strategy of permanent confrontation by exercising radial leadership between the parties. That is to say,Everything goes through the former president of the ECB and there are no bilateral meetings between the representatives of the partners that make up the Executive. Nobody is left alone with Salvini and his ministers have more and more power.

The municipal elections in October may be a turning point.

No one doubts that the result for the right-wing coalition (Forza Italia, Hermanos de Italia and Liga) will be bad.

Everything indicates that they will lose in the main five cities: Rome, Milan, Turin, Naples and Bologna.

The second round system will harm its candidates, who are very weak and with little internal and external support (the one from Milan is already threatening to withdraw and the one from Rome, an unknown announcer with nostalgia for the Roman Empire, goes from ridiculous to ridiculous).

But one of those three parties can benefit from the situation and enlarge the wound from which the League is now bleeding.

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The pandemic has had a direct effect on populism in Italy. Beyond the anti-vaccine movement, propaganda attitudes, unfounded campaigns and electoral shouting, it is being penalized in all polls. The Italian electorate is beginning to demand a moderate and focused right wing capable of facing the challenge that the next years of economic recovery will pose. The latest survey of the

Corriere della Sera

, carried out by Nando Pagnoncelli, pointed to Forza Italia as the only force in the right-wing coalition that grows in vote estimation. “There has been high expectations towards the Government and President Draghi. Citizens think that less cohesion means slowing down the government's action and shifting the issue to issues of power and not of interest to the country. On the right, the League that seeks a fight and questions vaccines and the

Green pass

[the covid certificate], is perceived as a force that the Government does not support in a convinced way. So we have seen a move of votes towards Forza Italia, which is much more cooperative. But we do not know if that growth of Forza Italia will continue, because today they do not have a very visible leader. He speaks and expresses himself little, he is coherent with the Executive, but he does not have the possibility of increasing support without a leader, ”he says on the phone.

Forza Italia, after two years of deep decomposition, may be the party that changes the dynamics in the coalition.

The extremes will stop forcing the speech and the formation of Berlusconi, the only one that has risen in the polls in recent weeks, can become a haven for moderate right-wing positions.

If

Il Cavaliere

decides, after a decade without stepping on the Chigi Palace carpet, to designate a successor.

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